The Soul of an Old Machine

78 points by mskalski 41 days ago | 20 comments

stackghost 36 days ago |

I also have a few machines I'm attached to. When I was fresh out of school I got a job at a startup writing PHP and bought myself an (at the time) brand new Thinkpad X220 with a Sandy Bridge i7 inside.

My 9 year old has it now. The battery is toast but the machine still faithfully trundles along. It plays Rollercoaster Tycoon on Fedora Linux. We're building a robot together for her birthday, so I'll be trying to install the Arduino tool chain on it.

I'll definitely miss that machine when it's no more.

assimpleaspossi 36 days ago | |

Hmm. The desktop I'm using right now has an i7 in it and I do everything with it. Hmm.

wkjagt 36 days ago | | |

Which generation? Just i7 by itself doesn't mean much. I think the newest are like 14th generation? The X220 is only 2nd generation ("Sandy Bridge"), about 15 years old.

stackghost 36 days ago | | |

Not sure what your two "Hmm"'s are implying, but the i7 label has been reapplied to newer chips as time goes on, which is why I specified it was a Sandy Bridge-era chip.

ge96 36 days ago | |

Lumia 920 for me, obsolete but I keep one around

jonhohle 36 days ago |

I’ve held onto FireWire for long and feel attached to it. I’ve used it for over 25 years.

I think I feel the same way about TiVo and fear the day the guide stops updating or the motherboard fails (everything else in the box is replaceable).

These things are ephemeral in the grand scheme of history, but when they are embedded in workflows and habits for decades I find it hard to let go.

dkdcdev 36 days ago |

I still need to read “The Soul of a New Machine”, should I save this until after?

JSR_FDED 36 days ago | |

Should be compulsory reading. Actually, now that I think about it, this would make a great interview question in the AI era: “what did you think of Soul of a new machine?”

abdulhaq 36 days ago | | |

I found Showstopper! even more compelling

dano 36 days ago | |

Honestly, when I read this book in 1982 or so it changed the trajectory of my life and career. It is an story of a bet-the-business project that occurred in real life. After reading I though I was late to the tech party, missed out on so much, and yet, here we are, 45 years later with incredible advancements and a career I couldn't have imagined. Tracy Kidder was a gem of an individual, just a wonderful person who was truly interested in others. I hope you'll read the book soon.

shon 36 days ago | |

Stop reading HN and read the book now. You’re welcome. ;)

pulvinar 36 days ago | |

It's unrelated to the book, other than the title.

engineer_22 36 days ago | |

Soul of a New machine is a great read, never slow or self-gratifying, highly recommended

jnsaff2 36 days ago | |

That's a great book to read, after that pick up The Cuckoo's Egg.